Good news everyone! KSP enters Beta version. What you like the most, what you don't?

[Franklin]

Beta Takeaways:

Likes

• Finally, an on-paper commitment to making the aero better, and with the verbiage of more realism in that respect. This has been a huge nag for hell, years.
  
• Positive reception to adopting more mods. As long as the mods are all winners and core-aligned, this is fantastic news. Fantastic content doesn't necessarily always come from in-house, I'm glad Squad recognizes that.
  
• It's a verbose commitment to a lot more development. Scope-complete doesn't mean feature-complete, is how I took it.
  

Dislikes

• Still no start-to-finish plan, lots of vague ideas without commitments, even with response to the "official" KerbalWiki features list, which include citations from developers. Squad's fun, but has commitment issues.
  
• No mention of any of the rest of the laundry list of feature-missing concerns beyond more realistic aero.
  
• The, "Does that added realism make KSP more fun?" line is a loophole, even though I understand their concern. Fun's priority, everyone gets that. But fun for whom? I just hope they don't make too many compromises in that respect and still try to sell their product as an .edu "learning tool". I'm gonna continue to suggest my friends wait it out on buying KSP if they wanna learn gravity/orbital physics if the math remains wrong or major elements ignored because some child said reality isn't fun.
  

Edited October 16, 2014 by Franklin

[Uncle Mort]

Adding Deep Space refuelling (mining?) is a great addition. Disappointed there's still no plans to have Delta V statistics available.

[tater]

Kiven that destroying huge facilities full of kerbals is apparently "fun," I guess we can expect DRE, life support, etc… or is that less fun because it kills fewer kerbals at a time?

[Shuttle]

I am very glad to hear aerodynamics will be reworked. I hate current physical model because it has nothing to do with logic and basic laws of physics. Plane doesn't fly better if you install 133 wings on the nose. However, I am disappointed nothing was said about other important features currently lacking in the game, such as:

separate thrust control (useful for shuttles)

reworked UI (why not to place navball closer to the left/right edge of the screen?)

Proper ISP implementation (in .25 fuel consumption changes throughout the flight instead of thrust)

fairings (have you ever seen a rocket without fairings?)

clouds/weather effects (because it is funny to launch a rocket right in the middle of the thunderstorm. Just don't forget to switch SCE to auxiliary )

deadly reentry (because it adds excitement, right now the process of reentry is plain boring: just make sure your Pe is lower than 70 km, press space and go drink some tea. I believe de-orbiting shouldn't look like that, it is a very risky process, you all know what happened to Columbia)

If developers are going to add these features in beta - I am ok with that, if not - son_i_am_disappoint.jpg

The, "Does that added realism make KSP more fun?" line is a loophole, even though I understand their concern. Fun's priority, everyone gets that. But fun for whom?

Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking! I hope Squad won't forget about hardcore players.

[NFUN]

I am very glad to hear aerodynamics will be reworked. I hate current physical model because it has nothing to do with logic and basic laws of physics. Plane doesn't fly better if you install 133 wings on the nose. However, I am disappointed nothing was said about other important features currently lacking in the game, such as:

separate thrust control (useful for shuttles)

reworked UI (why not to place navball closer to the left/right edge of the screen?)

Proper ISP implementation (in .25 fuel consumption changes throughout the flight instead of thrust)

fairings (have you ever seen a rocket without fairings?)

clouds/weather effects (because it is funny to launch a rocket right in the middle of the thunderstorm. Just don't forget to switch SCE to auxiliary )

deadly reentry (because it adds excitement, right now the process of reentry is plain boring: just make sure your Pe is lower than 70 km, press space and go drink some tea. I believe de-orbiting shouldn't look like that, it is a very risky process, you all know what happened to Columbia)

If developers are going to add these features in beta - I am ok with that, if not - son_i_am_disappoint.jpg

Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking! I hope Squad won't forget about hardcore players.

The thing is, most players of almost any game aren't hardcore players. The silent majority of stock players also tends to fit nicely in the sphere of 'softcore'. In other words, nearly all of the hardcore players use mods anyways, so SQUAD wasting development time catering to the relatively few players that already mod would be quite unproductive. That isn't to say realistic aerodynamics (which should be added in regardless) and DRE shouldn't be put in at all, but rather that a lot of realistic features (Life Support, much larger bodies) would be unused by a majority of the community, and those who would take advantage likely would have been experiencing the feature already.

In short, this post was terribly written, and most players that want a more hardcore game already mod and have it. It would only be fun for the minority.

[Captain Vlad]

Or even better... let us add our own music so that we can set whatever music starts playing in space or in the VAB/SPH.

Have yet to play 'Danger Zone' while firing up the turbojets on a spaceplane. Should do that tonight.

I'm very happy to hear about the stock aero. So much of my time on KSP is spent building planes that any added fidelity to that aspect of the game will be giddily anticipated by me, just as the new mk2 parts were.

[timsfitz]

Wouldn't adding reentry heat be an enormous amount of work? None of the game parts have heat shields. The new MK 2 spaceplane parts had the reentry shields removed. They would have to make so many new models. I don't care much for all that and would rather have more station and base parts with IVAs. Remodelling existing stuff is a waste of resources IMO.

[Andrew Hansen]

Dislikes: Still no start-to-finish plan, lots of vague ideas without commitments, even with response to the "official" KerbalWiki features list, which include citations from developers.

Obviously, SQUAD can't have a 100% rock-solid list of exactly what they're going to add before each release. As they'v stated in their blog post, they would need a time machine for that! Previously, when they unveiled features that had to be cancelled, the community would enter an uproar. So it's much better what they're doing now.

That said, the list they have is impressive. Saying that they're going to release multiplayer after 1.0? Woah! Of course, this is a bit more understandable because they must have already made some headway on that, since they've had a developer working on multiplayer for a while, and they also have evidence from a mod that it's possible.

Resources and better aerodynamics are a bit different, because they haven't been able to work on them much, if at all. And yet, the list they currently have is doable. If they add too many items to the list, some things may have to be erased later on, which nobody likes.

Anyway, I've been really impressed by SQUAD's awesome devnotes recently, and while it's nice to have surprises sometimes, it's also nice to know exactly what's going on other times.

Wouldn't adding reentry heat be an enormous amount of work?

Squad could just do what B9 Aerospace does and allow you to swap textures with Tweakables. You could right-click on any Mk2 fuselage part, and select from the default, current textures, or the ones with heat shields. I think this would extremely good for minimizing the quantity of parts in the editors too.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Andrew Hansen

[tater]

Reentry heat is already done, along with the parts in a few mods. On top of that, the part descriptions mention reentry in a few places as if it is a thing. It should be there, period.

[Andrew Hansen]

the part descriptions mention reentry in a few places as if it is a thing. It should be there, period.

This reminds me... You know how the junior docking port mentions that Kerbals can't fit through it? That should be removed, seeing as Kerbals actually can squeeze through any docking ports or tiny connections. Unless of course that changes (which would be awesome). The same rules used for fuel flow could be used for Kerbals, and each part could have a value that says whether or not they could be passed through by Kerbals. Fuel tanks shouldn't have that ability (or maybe they could, but only when empty), but structural fuselages and various other structural pieces could.

[Franklin]

Wouldn't adding reentry heat be an enormous amount of work? None of the game parts have heat shields. The new MK 2 spaceplane parts had the reentry shields removed. They would have to make so many new models. I don't care much for all that and would rather have more station and base parts with IVAs. Remodelling existing stuff is a waste of resources IMO.

As has been stated, a mod's already been made so the proof-of-concept is done. Also, all parts already have a "Max Temp." stat, which hints at at least a desire to make temperature an important element.

[tater]

This reminds me... You know how the junior docking port mentions that Kerbals can't fit through it? That should be removed, seeing as Kerbals actually can squeeze through any docking ports or tiny connections. Unless of course that changes (which would be awesome). The same rules used for fuel flow could be used for Kerbals, and each part could have a value that says whether or not they could be passed through by Kerbals. Fuel tanks shouldn't have that ability (or maybe they could, but only when empty), but structural fuselages and various other structural pieces could.

Yeah, this is interesting. I forgot about the jr.s, frankly. The only time I ever use them is to attach rescue pods (I make a "bus" with 4 mk1 pods, and leave them attached to a station or tug for rescue missions (I don't do spaceplanes).

[Rakaydos]

The "waypoint" system in Fine Print looks like something that cold shake up resource collection...

[NecroBones]

I really like the planned resource system, while many will probably disagree with me (and rightfully so) I think that it'd make some interesting solutions to otherwise no-win scenarios, I just hope that they make the modules heavy, so it's not just a "slap on and forget until you need it" kind of thing. It should be an integral part of the mission, and not just a thing you put to the side.

(Emphasis mine)

This. Very much this. If it's something that can be used in a long-term mission that is planned around it, that's great. But I don't think every tiny 1-man lander (or unmanned rover for that matter) should be able to carry this capability by default, by virtue of it being small and lightweight. It should be a real commitment to move heavy hardware, to have this capability, IMHO.

[Franklin]

Why? I mean existing prototypes of various ISRU units aren't huge and heavy, depending on their function. Take MOXIE for example:

The instrument is known as MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resources Utilization Experiment). It will pull carbon dioxide from the thin Martian atmosphere, which is composed of about 96 percent CO2, and turn it into pure oxygen and carbon monoxide, said Michael Hecht of MIT, the instrument's principal investigator.

"This is essentially a fuel cell run in reverse," he said. (Hecht added that CO2 is often a product of fuel cells, which generate electricity from fuels such as hydrogen.)

[Stargate525]

Am I the only one finding it funny in a slightly perturbing way that they tout out multiplayer as this big thing they were planning all along, then don't actually put it in the 1.0 release? That is now the same, in essence, as talking about DLC when you're still half a year out from release.

[Sandworm]

Am I the only one finding it funny in a slightly perturbing way that they tout out multiplayer as this big thing they were planning all along, then don't actually put it in the 1.0 release? That is now the same, in essence, as talking about DLC when you're still half a year out from release.

Because I don't think they have any idea what will or will not be in the release. Everything from Squad lately is hedged in soft, non-committal language. Therefore I suspect that the move to "beta" and "release" is not dictated by features or anything else in the game we see. Time, money, personalities, basic staffing/HR concerns ... something external to KSP is calling the shots.

For all the talk of freedom, a perpetual startup will always burn out. Only those that mature or sell to a mature organization (ie canonical -> microsoft) survive long term.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

I hope that a statistics building will be added to the complex. It would be awesome to keep track of your entire space program's history. Finance graphs, flight history, total assets worth, pilot history, contracts history, science history etc. all in one building!

Not saying this will be likely, but this is what I long for.

[razark]

Because I don't think they have any idea what will or will not be in the release. Everything from Squad lately is hedged in soft, non-committal language.

I think they have a pretty good idea of what they plan to have in the release. They just refuse to tell the community about it for the same reason they don't mention release dates.

If they announce something, and for some reason they later realize they cannot deliver X feature on Y date, a large portion of the community goes bat crap insane with rage and fury. A lot of people need to grow up and realize that not every plan works out, and sometimes other plans become possible. Squad needs to learn that no matter what they do, they're going to .... off somebody.

[timsfitz]

As has been stated, a mod's already been made so the proof-of-concept is done. Also, all parts already have a "Max Temp." stat, which hints at at least a desire to make temperature an important element.

My point is they don't have heat shields. I don't care what it says in the part description. Heat shields would have to be added to the look of the part. I would rather have more useful things done with Squads time than revisiting all or some of the existing parts just to add black tiles to them. They already made the decision NOT to do that as the black tiles have been removed from all of the parts except MK3 spaceplane, and I would bet good money the new MK3 parts won't have black tiles on them either.

I could be wrong, but I'm just stating my opinion. I think their time is better spent on other features and they seem to agree with me.

[Tortoise]

I like aerodyamics.

I don't like no more hype train

[NecroBones]

Why? I mean existing prototypes of various ISRU units aren't huge and heavy, depending on their function. Take MOXIE for example:

http://i.imgur.com/Fq4Njyb.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/49yZWhU.jpg

While that's a really good example of a viable technology, we're talking about a gameplay mechanic that involves refueling entire spacecraft. If it's small enough that there's never a reason to NOT use it, then you'll always have free fuel available to you.

[tater]

My point is they don't have heat shields. I don't care what it says in the part description. Heat shields would have to be added to the look of the part. I would rather have more useful things done with Squads time than revisiting all or some of the existing parts just to add black tiles to them. They already made the decision NOT to do that as the black tiles have been removed from all of the parts except MK3 spaceplane, and I would bet good money the new MK3 parts won't have black tiles on them either.

I could be wrong, but I'm just stating my opinion. I think their time is better spent on other features and they seem to agree with me.

Look at the parts, they are trivial. In addition, they could simply incorporate the mods they like if need be.

As for spaceplanes… the difference is a texture. It's a paint job.

[Kamuchi]

I`ll settle with a stable win 64 build, for the rest we have mods

[Tripzter]

I ekeep hoping for a more efficient game engine so i'm not lagging with 16gb, 5 gig processor and a gtx980..